Two views of the age of Ogham writing in Ireland have been held and strenuously supported.
The first regards all existing monuments as pre-Christian, and considers all crosses or other Christian symbols upon them as subsequent additions. The second considers the script itself (and consequently all examples of the use of the script) as entirely post-Christian in origin.
No one seen is willing to accept a compromise, whereby the script might be considered of pre-Cristian origin, but continued in use till many years after the establishment of Christianity.
This, however, seems the view most consistent with existing evidence.
While it may be regarded as axiomatic that stones found on Christian sites, or bearing Christian symbols, are of Christian origin-the theory that crosses are all superadded is quite too far-fetched to be admissible-there are some which are evidently examples of the reappropriation of Ogham monuments for subsequent Christian use.
Of such stones the best example is at Kilfountain, near Dingle ; this bears on one face a cross -and inscription, Ginten, in Irish letters ; on the edge is an entirely independent and no doubt earlier Ogham, Inisi. The two have nothing to do with each other.
The stone found at Glenfahan, also near Dingle, bears two crosses and an inscription which there seems every reason to regard as an occult or magical formula. Such a formula can scarcely be a Christian invention, and its inventors must have had some sort of script in which to write it down. (On this stone see Trans. R.l.A., Vol. XXXI., p. 317.) Thus even among stones with crosses upon them, of some the crosses are not conclusive evidence of date, and in others there is definite indication that the stone belongs to the Pagan-Christian overlap.
If now we turn our attention to stones not marked with the cross we find certain monuments which it would be very difficult to persuade ourselves (if we be unbiassed) are Christian. The three examples of Ogham writing found associated with stone circles need not be called in evidence, as in that case the monument mast precede the Ogham; anything we know of stone circles suggests that they must be put back to an age quite too remote for writing to be contemporary with them. But we find Ogham writing in other connexions as well in which the disparity of date is by no means a probable hypothesis. Examples are:

(1) The very pagan looking tumultis at Lugnagappul, near Auniscaul, co. Kerry; a low mound of stones and earth, overgrown with furze, with stones set round its circumference-two of them Ogham inscribed. This monument is locally connected by tradition with a great battle, and is known as Cnocán an fhola, 'the little hill of blood.' It bears every indication of enclosing very instructive secrets.

(2.) The great rude pillar-stone at Crag, near Tralee, inscribed, "Of Luguttis the Poet," and interesting as being the oldest monument of a poet in the British Islands. It would be difficult to conceive a more pagan looking monument. unless it be:

(3) The imposing stone alignment on the top of a hill at Droumatouk, near Kenmare. This consists of a magnificent slab of stone,-about 12 ft. in height, flanked on each side with two smaller but conspicuous stones. Who Lugunis, the occupant of this sepulchre, was, we do not kniow; but he certainly owns a royal monument:

(4.) Lastly, a stone recently discovered at Dromlusk, in the same district, is in point. This consists of two stones in north and south alignment; on the eastern face of the stone bearing the Ogham is a circie engraved, in exactly the same technique as the scoring of the letters.

Though solar symbolism and the like are generally discredited and ridiculed hypotheses in explaining monuments like this, it is impossible to free the mind from them in examining this stone. The meridian alignment and the east-pointing circle are very suggestive in this direction.
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1902.] \IAN. [Nos. 4-6. These examples make it at least "admissible to doubt that all Ogham monauments are of the Christian period ; and it follows that the stript may reasonably be regarded as a pagan invention carried into the Christian epoch, and widely used long after the establishment of Christianity in Ireland.
R. A. S. MACALISTER.